Homily

by Most Rev Philip Boyce, D.D.,   Bishop of Raphoe

 ORDINATION OF REV. MARTIN CHAMBERS

FEAST OF SAINTS PETER AND PAUL

ST. EUNAN’S CATHEDRAL, LETTERKENNY

29TH JUNE 2003

          On this, your Ordination day, your Lord and Master invites you to abide in His love.  In the Gospel passage you chose for this celebration, Christ speaks to his friends, to his chosen Apostles and to you, Martin, and He says:  “Remain in My love” (Jn 15:9).

           The Master who called you and asked you to labour in his vineyard is no uncaring slave-driver, but a Friend who gives you life and peace and happiness.  It was the love symbolised in His Sacred Heart that drew you to his service and made you struggle bravely and repeatedly against many obstacles in order to answer his call:  “Follow me”.  Like the Apostles Peter and Paul, whose Feast we celebrate today, Christ’s love triumphed in your life and won you for Himself.  With Paul the Apostle you can say that ‘the love of Christ urges you on’ and that ‘nothing can separate you from God’s love in Christ Jesus, your Lord’ (cf. Rom 8:39).  With St Peter you say with trembling but firm sincerity:  “Lord, you know everything;  you know that I love you” (Jn 21:17).

           It follows then that your life and ministry must be at all times a living witness to the love which Christ has for the entire Christian community.  After the example of the Good Shepherd you will spend your days helping believers to respond to the love which Jesus the Lord has for them.  

          The capacity and the strength to do all this, you will receive from your daily Mass and from Christ’s abiding presence among us in the Blessed Sacrament.  Jesus, our “Eternal High Priest, instituted the priesthood and the Holy Eucharist.  These are two sacramental gifts of love, which He bequeathed to us in the sad hour of parting, when He himself - in the intention of his enemies - was already condemned to die.  These two sacraments are outpourings of his Heart, overflowing with love” (cf. M.Julia).

           Therefore, I ask you as a priest to be a man of the Eucharist.  Not only do I make that appeal but, as you know, Pope John Paul II has repeatedly put the Eucharist before us priests as the vital centre and life-giving force of all our priestly activity.  “The heart of Christian prayer and the key to the mystery of our priesthood [the Pope writes] is certainly the Eucharist.  For this reason, for each of us the celebration of the Mass can only be the centre of our life and the most important moment of each day...we have no alternative” (6 March 2003).  

          The daily offering of the Mass has the power to give focus to your life as a priest.  To do so, it must not become a routine ritual that you get into the habit of performing like an actor on a stage.  You must put your heart and soul into it, you must be yourself a sacrifice with Christ to the glory of the Father.  The Mass contains the words of Scripture, words of life that should not leave you indifferent and untouched.  Moreover, the heart of every Mass is a sacrifice, the same sacrifice that was offered by Christ on Calvary.  It is not simply a pious or even faith-filled remembrance of what happened on the Cross, but it is the same sacrifice made present again in a new way, that is, under the sacramental signs of bread and wine.  Our Catechism tells us that “The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice” (CCC 1367).  And the Pope in his Letter repeats the words of an ancient Father of the Church:  “We always offer the same Lamb, not one today and another tomorrow, but always the same one.  For this reason the sacrifice is always one...Even now we offer that victim that was once offered and who will never be consumed” (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, No. 12).  Indeed, in every Mass, before you will distribute the fruits of the Sacrifice in Holy Communion, you will say:  “This is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world”.  

          You are the minister of these sublime realities of faith.  Only the priest can celebrate Mass.  This will place a heavy responsibility upon you.  You will have to identify with the sacrifice you offer and become “a priest and victim” with Christ for the salvation of souls.  I shall soon present to you the gifts from this assembly and say:  “Accept from the holy people of God the gifts to be offered to Him.  Know what you are doing, and imitate the mystery you celebrate:  model your life on the mystery of the Lord’s cross”.  If the faithful people at Mass offer themselves with the divine victim, how much more so should the priest do it, for he says:  “This is my Body, given up for you.  This is my Blood, shed for you.”  

          The visible sincerity and prayerful manner in which you celebrate the Eucharist will encourage prayer, foster respect and be a powerful means of evangelisation.  Moreover, “it is in the Eucharist that prayer for vocations is most closely united to the prayer of Christ the Eternal High Priest. ...the diligence of priests in carrying out their Eucharistic ministry, together with the conscious, active and fruitful participation of the faithful in the Eucharist, provides young men with a powerful example and incentive for responding generously to God’ s call.  Often it is the example of a priest’s fervent pastoral charity which the Lord uses to sow and to bring to fruition in a young man’s heart the seed of a priestly calling” (Eccl. de Eucharistia, No. 31).  Pray then at the altar and in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament for our young seminarians, for the grace of perseverance, for other young and generous hearts to come to fill the empty seat you leave in the Seminary.

           I also ask you to extend your Mass throughout the day.  Do not forget the Real Presence of the Lord in our tabernacles and adoration chapels.  The Church tells you that “spending time in intimate conversation with, and adoration of, the Good Shepherd, present in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, is a pastoral priority far superior to any other” (The Priest, Pastor and Leader...(2002), No.11).  A parish where the holy Eucharist is not celebrated with reverence and adored with faith soon becomes spiritually arid.  And if you wish your people to pray willingly and piously, set the example yourself by praying in your church before them.  A priest on his knees before the tabernacle is a powerful invitation to prayer and an effective reminder that the ground they stand on is holy and the divine presence is real (cf. Pius XII and John XXIII).  

          As the renowned Cardinal Newman once said:  “My Brethren,  the great truth is daily before our eyes: He has ordained the standing miracle of His Body and Blood under visible symbols, that He may secure thereby the standing mystery of Omnipotence in bonds” (Sermons on Various Occasions, p.87).  He, the All-Powerful, has willed to be a prisoner of love for us in the Blessed Sacrament until the end of time.

          Finally, I wish you, Martin, many happy years and fruitful years of priestly service.  May Our Lady, Mother of priests, guide your steps.  If the Eucharist is a “mystery of faith”, then Mary anticipated the Church's Eucharistic faith when she became the first living “tabernacle” of the Incarnate Son of God.  She believed the Archangel Gabriel’s word and adored the mystery as yet not visible to her eyes.  May she share her faith with you, awaken your “amazement” before the gift of the Eucharist, assist you in all your priestly duties and help you always to “do whatever He, her Son, says” (Jn 2:5), and “to remain in His love” (cf. Jn 15:9)